Weekly Capital Markets Update

Market Overview

Sources:Sources for data in tables: Equity Market and Fixed Income returns are from JP Morgan as of 02/07/2020. Rates and Economic Calendar Data from Bloomberg as of 02/07/2020. International developed markets measured by the MSCI EAFE Index, emerging markets measured by the MSCI EM Index. Sector performance is measured using GICS methodology.

Happening Now

Global equity markets came storming back during the first week of February. In the U.S., the S&P 500 Index rose to a level of 3,328, representing a gain of 3.21%. The index reached record highs midweek and now sits in positive territory for the year. Unable to keep pace with their large-cap counterpart, though still posting impressive results, the Russell Midcap and the Russell 2000 Index, a measure of the Nation’s smallest publicly traded firms, returned 2.24% and 2.67% respectively. On the international equities front, developed markets gained 1.86%, while emerging markets increased 2.75% for the week. Finally, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield closed at 1.59%, up 8 basis points from the prior week.

Positive economic news and corporate earnings reports supported the rally. In the U.S., payroll numbers significantly surpassed expectations and activity increased in the service sector. In Asia, China signaled continued willingness to support growth in the form of additional monetary stimulus. This news helped fuel the global rally. These updates came in amid the increasing impact of the Coronavirus, which continues to dominate headlines. To put the virus’ economic impact into perspective, Goldman Sachs Asset Management estimates a 0.1-0.2 percentage point drag on 2020 global growth and expects new infections to peak in Q1. They also expect the Q1 economic growth impact to be “mostly offset by a subsequent pick-up later in the year.” While we hope the virus is contained as soon as possible, it’s potential impact doesn’t materially change our economic views for 2020 at this point in time.

As it relates to corporate earnings, recent reports helped to validate the rally and provided some rationale for optimism to persist in 2020. According to FactSet, with 64% of the companies in the S&P 500 reporting results for Q4 2019, 71% of companies reported earnings-per-share (EPS) above estimates and 67% of companies beat revenue estimates. Combining actual results with remaining expectations, the revised earnings growth rate is roughly +0.7%. At the onset of earnings season, the anticipation was for a year-over-year decline in earnings growth, as was the case just last week. An increase would mark a change from the negative bias of recent quarters and sets-up for what we expect to be consecutive quarters of positive earnings growth over the 1st half of 2020.

Earnings continue to roll in this week along with a slew of economic data releases. Updates on inflation, small business optimism, retail sales, and consumer sentiment will undoubtedly garner attention as will continued updates on the Coronavirus. As always, we continue to encourage investors to stay disciplined and work with experienced financial professionals to help manage their portfolios through various market cycles within an appropriately diversified framework that is consistent with their objectives, time-frame, and tolerance for risk.

Important Information and Disclaimers

Disclosures: Hennion & Walsh is the sponsor of SmartTrust® Unit Investment Trusts (UITs). For more information on SmartTrust® UITs, please visit www.smarttrustuit.com. The overview above is for informational purposes and is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any SmartTrust® UITs. Investors should consider the Trust’s investment objective, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing. The prospectus contains this and other information relevant to an investment in the Trust and investors should read the prospectus carefully before they invest.

Investing in foreign securities presents certain risks not associated with domestic investments, such as currency fluctuation, political and economic instability, and different accounting standards. This may result in greater share price volatility. These risks are heightened in emerging markets.

There are special risks associated with an investment in real estate, including credit risk, interest rate fluctuations and the impact of varied economic conditions. Distributions from REIT investments are taxed at the owner’s tax bracket.

The prices of small company and mid cap stocks are generally more volatile than large company stocks. They often involve higher risks because smaller companies may lack the management expertise, financial resources, product diversification and competitive strengths to endure adverse economic conditions.

Investing in commodities is not suitable for all investors. Exposure to the commodities markets may subject an investment to greater share price volatility than an investment in traditional equity or debt securities. Investments in commodities may be affected by changes in overall market movements, commodity index volatility, changes in interest rates or factors affecting a particular industry or commodity.

Products that invest in commodities may employ more complex strategies which may expose investors to additional risks.

Investing in fixed income securities involves certain risks such as market risk if sold prior to maturity and credit risk especially if investing in high yield bonds, which have lower ratings and are subject to greater volatility. All fixed income investments may be worth less than original cost upon redemption or maturity. Bond Prices fluctuate inversely to changes in interest rates. Therefore, a general rise in interest rates can result in the decline of the value of your investment.

Definitions

MSCI- EAFE: The Morgan Stanley Capital International Europe, Australasia and Far East Index, a free float-adjusted market capitalization index that is designed to measure developed-market equity performance, excluding the United States and Canada.

MSCI-Emerging Markets: The Morgan Stanley Capital International Emerging Market Index, is a free float-adjusted market capitalization index that is designed to measure the performance of global emerging markets of about 25 emerging economies.

Russell 3000: The Russell 3000 measures the performance of the 3000 largest US companies based on total market capitalization and represents about 98% of the investible US Equity market.

ML BOFA US Corp Mstr [Merill Lynch US Corporate Master]: The Merrill Lynch Corporate Master Market Index is a statistical composite tracking the performance of the entire US corporate bond market over time.

LIBOR, London Interbank Offered Rate, is the rate of interest at which banks offer to lend money to one another in the wholesale money markets in London.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is an unweighted index of 30 “blue-chip” industrial U.S. stocks.

The S&P Midcap 400 Index is a capitalization-weighted index measuring the performance of the mid-range sector of the U.S. stock market, and represents approximately 7% of the total market value of U.S. equities. Companies in the Index fall between S&P 500 Index and the S&P SmallCap 600 Index in size: between $1-4 billion.